Our house

Finally thought I should pop up our elevation and floorplan!

Original elevation

The shiny new elevation

Quick note: I've re-done the original elevation in Photoshop!

We're looking at a light Colourbond roof, 'wooden' garage door, two-toned gutters (is that also the fascia thingo?!). We're also adding a strip of slate brick things to the portico as well. (There's a lot of 'things' replacing actual words there, yeeesh).

And, here's the new and improved (read: scribbled) floorplan! We've only had the initial one done and will be getting the new and improved ones soon, where we will chat to our lovely sales rep about what changes we want done. (As a side note, Michael Bartier from Commodore Homes is an absolute legend - we love him!)

The crumpled, well loved initial floorplan

Apologies for the quality - it's looking a little like a dog's breakfast at the moment (I had a sudden fit of inspiration with the landscaping hah!!).

You can view the original here at the Commodore Homes website. I've fallen in love with our amended floorplan - Michael was a real help here with some great suggestions that really suited our lifestyle and future plans.

I'm keen to know your thoughts on these (assuming you can read through the scribble?!!).

Handy links!

I'm a bit of an interweb addict, and loooove checking out everything online (and offline - display homes, samples and the like!). While we're going through this crazy journey, I thought it would be handy for everyone if I pop some useful links in the site!

Check them all the handy links here!

The start of the journey

Holy guacamole, what a month December has been! OK, well where to start?

Joe had to pop over to the UK for 3 weeks at the end of November. This was just after we had to re-sign our rental lease for another 12 months. We had requested a change to a 6 month lease, but according to the rental agent it was too hard to get people in around winter time to rent.

Well, I was a bit sceptical about that.

• It's not like Perth is in a rental crisis. Well, actually we are. THERE'S NOT ENOUGH HOUSES TO GO AROUND. Every rental home open we went to had at least 20 people applying, just on that day. It was insane!
• April is not quite winter. In fact, it's a rather nice time to move - not too hot, not too cold.

Added to that, the rent got jacked up $30 per week. Not astronomical, and not unexpected, but when we sat down and thought about it... well, we could have seriously been paying off a mortgage with the amount of rent we were paying.

So we though "We're here for another year. Bugger it, let's build. 12 months - perfect."

We'd been doing some bits and bobs with saving, and figured we'd be ok with pulling together a deposit in the meantime while we were looking around at houses and blocks of land.

At this stage, we'd had a squiz on realestate.com.au for some blocks of land but that was pretty much about it. We knew the areas we wanted to build in, the approximate block size (which was primarily budget driven) and the overall budget (with some give in case we went over budget). How did we do this? Research, research, research. Lots of internet reading, checking out of real estate sites, checking out land developer websites.

Builder-wise, I pretty much knew who we would build with, thanks to working at a digital agency who does a heap of websites for a heap of builders. So Commodore Homes it was! It does what it says on the tin - you really do get more with Commodore! I also know quite a few of the guys and gals there, they are absolutely lovely!

So after a crazy night out on the town, we managed to make it into the Harrisdale Fernley display home to meet our sales rep, Michael. He is AMAZING. Not your typical salesy type of guy, he really listens to what you want and helps steer you in the right direction.

We ended up going with the Quattro as it had the best value per sqm, and fitted well with what we were after... a house we could make lovely and live in for 5 or so years, and then sell for a nice profit.

So, that was all decided and then the very next day, Joe had to fly off to the UK! *waves goodbye*

Now, I HAD asked him "If I find a great block of land that we can't pass up, what should we do?". His answer: "Email me, we'll play it by ear." And, while he was gone, I needed to keep myself busy. Soooo I might have thrown myself into researching land and land estates.

<insert 2 weeks of running around and looking at estates, and chocking up crazy hours on the interwebs>

After a whole heap of looking around, it came down to location and affordability. Here's how it went down:

1. Success
Th new blocks of land that we COULD afford weren't available until 2014. Added to that, we were leaning towards a land developer that offered extra incentives. So this was scrapped.

2. Beeliar
Again, a couple of bits of land but not many incentives available. Added to that, it did push up the budget by about $30K as the cost of land here was a bit pricey.

3. Hammond Park
This was very strange. Found a great little estate (Hammond Heights), with affordable blocks. BUT for the life of me, I could NOT find who the land developer was. Later I found out that the blocks were passed onto the real estate companies with an incentive for when they were sold by the developer. Hammond Park was a great location, especially with the Cockburn shopping center just down the way, the potential new train station, proximity to the existing Cockburn train station and close to the freeway. It's a lovely area.... so we had this pencilled in as a possibility.

4. Aubin Grove
Nothing here in our price range, we could have increased our budget but... WAH!!! :(

5. Wellard
If this was a) closer to Perth and b) was surrounded by better suburbs, it could be a go-er. But, what we were looking for was a suburb that was surrounded by suburbs that would pull up the resale value of the house. My thoughts are that Wellard is the suburb that pulls up the prices of the other suburbs around it - the opposite of what we want (if that makes sense!). I was contemplating this for ages, it is absolutely lovely there! Love the trees, love the town center - the government has put a heap of money into the estate as well. But, it just wasn't doing it for us.

6. Wandi
The blocks seemed really pricey for the size & distance from Perth. Such a lovely area though, it's going to look smoking when it's done (and you know it will, as it's the largest display village and developed by the Satterley Group - big invested interest here!).


7. Piara Waters
Initially, this wasn't interesting me. We drove through, and the only thing I could see were those bloody great big powerlines... NO THANKS! But I went back a couple of times to refresh my memory and there were some really nice pockets in there.


And, then realised "HANG ON A SECOND. There's another bit here, Harrisdale!". Went and checked that out and BOOM. There it was. What we were looking for!

• drivable distance to the Cockburn train station
• close to Canning Vale, where the house and rent $$ are really great at the moment
• lovely estate developed by the Satterley Group
• no powerlines too close... whoop!!
• affordable and within budget
• lovely parklands
• decent distance to Perth (for the cost)

So, went in, grabbed a heap of pamphlets and made some small talk with the sales rep and drove off for more of a look around. Went home, and looked at the stage map for a couple of nights, scribbling, thinking, trying to figure out how much more $$ we could squeeze in for something a bit nicer, located better etc.

It came down to 4 blocks - all opposite a lovely landscaped park!

The block location

The amended floor plan!

Joe arrived back December 9th, 5.30am.... where on the way back home, I broke the news "I've found a really awesome block of land (yesterday)!". We had to move quick - in literally a week, about 1/2 of the blocks had been snatched up, not including the ones I didn't know about! So, after a 7 hours snooze he woke up, we got our crap sorted and went to see our Sales Reps.

POOR JOE. Jetlagged, checking out things and on Sunday, signing things... but, we did it!! Locked away the land and the house (subject to finance) and voila! We're now on the way to being crazy obsessed house peoples.

Here's some super exciting videos of the block... hah!

Saturday 8/12/2012

Friday 14/12/2012